DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Hafertepe and Bogucki hug it out, Outlaws go trucking for High Limit cash | Daily 5-25-2025
World of Outlaws drivers set to use free passes to steal High Limit cash, Hudson O'Neal rises, Scott Bogucki and Sam Hafertepe hug it out, and more today. Let's go!
It's Sunday, May 25th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
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We'll start your Sunday off with some dirt late model chat. Bobby Pierce the winner last night at the Show-Me 100, taking down $75,000. He was solid the first two nights, picking up top ten finishes, but nowhere near race winning speed. They definitely made some good changes going into Saturday though, as he was able to drive up from eighth to take the lead by lap 69, and he led the rest of the way. That should easily keep him atop the dirt late model world for another week, and that was win number 14 in 39 starts this season. Stepping back for a minute, Lucas Oil Speedway occupies such a strange place in the sport. It's one of the nicest dirt tracks in the country, the races there pay well, but it has it's issues. The big one is that it's decently far from any major metro areas, with Kansas City two-ish hours away, and St. Louis three and a half. It never seems to draw big crowds, even though it hosts big events. That was again evident this weekend. The other thing, is we've seen that track have problems with the surface, and in years past it's not been uncommon for it to take rubber in the 100 lapper. With that said, big kudos to the track folks on last night's surface. It held up well over the distance, and we had four lead changes among three drivers. That place definitely deserves more support than it gets. Looking at the story of the season for the Lucas late models, the focus here lately definitely has to be on the continued rise of Hudson O'Neal with Jason Durham. He won both Thursday and Friday, and the 71 is now solidified in the championship hunt in fourth. O'Neal's speed along with troubles for Garrett Alberson led to a big swing. Alberson went from in, to 150 points out. And that was really caused by the blown tire on Friday which led to the 58 pounding the turn one wall. That car was hurt in that crash, and the team had to bring out the backup for Saturday. This is one of those situations where you hope the team can just keep going with the backup, and that there wasn't some special magic in that primary. It wouldn't be the first time we'd seen a season undone by a bent car that was fast. And Alberson did back up last night to his first finish outside the top ten since Brownstown in March in a race they finished. Hopefully they can get things right and get back after O'Neal for the chase spot. Behind, Brandon Overton and Brandon Sheppard had some solid runs, but they are both well over 200 points back of O'Neal in fourth with work to do. Lucas goes quiet now until June 13th and 14th at Smoky Mountain. Regional series will be back at the forefront this coming week, and then attention will shift to Eldora for the Dream.
Elsewhere, Casey Roberts was a Spring Nationals winner at Sugar Creek back on Friday. Yesterday at North Georgia, and today's race at Duck River with the Spring Nationals were both rained out. Ashton Winger and Jason Feger picked up MARS wins, they head to Spoon River today. Dalton Cook was a $10,000 winner at East Alabama, and Austin Yarborough bagged $10 grand in crate action at All-Tech.
On the sprint car side, the big money is on the line today at Port Royal, with the Weikert getting a late bump to $100,000 to win. Brent Marks handled business last night to earn $20,000 with High Limit at Port, while the Friday race was lost to weather. Things should get tougher today though. The Outlaws are off after racing Attica last night, and they hit up Atomic tomorrow. There will be at least a few Outlaw teams who truck to PA to burn a freebie to try and steal the High Limit cash. We know David Gravel is on the way, Zach Hampton is going, and I wouldn't be shocked to see others en route. We also know that after running last night at Knoxville, Brian Brown's team is making the tow to Port to run. That's a track that Brownie has had success at in the past. So that field of 45 from last night could easily swell into the 50s. Behind Marks' win last night, Lance Dewease was second after leading early, and Ryan Smith third. Brad Sweet finishing down in 19th again allowed guys behind to close, and the top six in the standings have really compressed. Only 92 points cover the top six. I was a bit shocked to hear that both of these Port Royal shows were full points with High Limit given the differing format. This would be the type of weekend with the Outlaws that would be show-up points only, and that format really seemed to burn some drivers yesterday. Marks was the only driver who qualified in the back half of the order who was able to get a decent lap timing fifth. Rico was really behind because of the pill draw in 42nd. He timed in 27th. It should be a fun day there today, so don't miss it.
With the Outlaws, last night's win came down to Sheldon Haudenschild vs. Logan Schuchart, and it was Schuchart who came out on top. Win number two on the year for Schuchart, and exactly what that 1S team needed after two tough weeks, between the crash at Williams Grove, and two finishes outside the top ten in Canada. Last night did feel like an opportunity squandered for both Carson Macedo and Buddy Kofoid. And understand, I say that knowing I mentioned a few weeks ago I was probably going to stop talking about the championship. A little part of me though still hopes someone can bring some sort of fight to Gravel. Both Kofoid and Macedo have a lot of experience in Ohio, and both have run well at Attica in the past. This could have been a track where they made up some ground. But David Gravel did get his 35th straight top ten finish in sixth, while Kofoid was only ninth, and Macedo had issues and ended up 18th. Those issues included a troubled bleeder, and an incident with brother Cole. A couple of other notes, Kalib Henry the top finishing Ohio regular, he had a very nice 23rd to the eighth charge. Also, when the Outlaws rained out Friday night at Attica, both Buddy Kofoid and Garet Williamson found their way to Williams Grove for weekly action. I was told neither driver burned a freebie to run those races because of the Outlaw rainout. I do not have clarity however on Bill Balog running the week before with the IRA and if that one counted as a freebie used. As I said just a minute ago though, we will see some passes used today against High Limit at Port Royal.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Noah Gass and Jason Martin with the POWRi 410 sprint cars. Did you guys see that deal on Friday at US36 between Sam Hafertepe and Scott Bogucki? The two started together on the front row, but tangled into turn three on the opening lap, and both went for absolutely massive rides. It looked like maybe Hafertepe thought Bogucki was going to stay high, but both ended up going for the same real estate and meeting on the spot in an ugly way. Hafertepe's car tumbling well off the track, and Bogucki's 78 flipping wildy. The two drivers clearly okay though, as in the aftermath, they decided to hug it out on track during the red flag. It looked for a minute there like a high school wrestling match. The Start2Finish TV camera was all over it. Neither driver ended up racing anywhere on Saturday. Ryan Timms was last night at Knoxville, Cameron Smith and Troy Wagaman won at the Grove and Lincoln, Justin Sanders bagged two at Silver Dollar, and Cannon McIntosh was an Xtreme midget winner last night at Airport Speedway.
Weekend USMTS wins so far have gone to Kyle Strickler and Rodney Sanders. They race again today at Mason City Motor Speedway.
Make sure you get a look at the streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight. There is a bunch of racing around the country today because of the holiday weekend. That includes the Super DIRTcar Series at Weedsport, a lot of weekly action, plus the races I've already mentioned.
We will shut it down right there. Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!